


The Gardens of Green Knowe

by Bookwormsarah



Category: Green Knowe Series - Lucy M. Boston
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-22
Updated: 2013-12-22
Packaged: 2018-01-05 15:27:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1095632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bookwormsarah/pseuds/Bookwormsarah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Linnie Oldknow is six years old and newly arrived at Green Knowe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Gardens of Green Knowe

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Elennare](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elennare/gifts).



Linnie Oldknow stepped through the garden door and hesitated. She had played in the gardens so many times before, but this felt different. She wasn't being sent out to run around while Papa and Uncle Roger talked, with the promise of lunch with Grandmama and then home at the end of the day, her time for exploration taken in brief snatches. Now she had all the time she wanted, so much more than she wanted. Her Papa was gone and she wouldn’t be returning to the red brick villa where she had lived for most of her six years. Now she was here at Green Knowe with her aunt and uncle, and they were going to look after her until she was grown up. 

At least Nanny Softly was here with her. Nanny had come to the red house when Mama had died, and Linnie couldn’t imagine life without her. The hesitation was for other reasons too. She had spent so much time here, but always there was Papa and his stories, his laughter and his songs. She knew that at the end of the day she would hear his voice calling out “Where’s my Linnie?” and she would run to be scooped up in his arms and swung about. Then they would walk home together, hand in hand, and he would tell her stories before handing her over to Nanny in the nursery for supper and bed. Sometimes he had dinner parties where Ivy Softly would be an extra pair of hands in the kitchen, and Linnie would pull her coverlet around her shoulders and creep along the landing to listen to the laughter below. One day she would be big enough to go in to dinner with Papa, to join in with the stories and merriment. But now… Papa had been thrown from his horse and everything had been cold and dark until her aunt had appeared, and the nursery became a whirl of confusion as clothes and linens, toys and books, were packed into trunks to make the short trek along the river to Green Knowe. 

They had been taken first to the little room high up which would be Linnie’s own. She had inspected it carefully, ducking around the roof beams where they stretched down to touch the floor, stroking the smooth dark wood of the chest of drawers with an admiring finger tip, and looking longingly towards a mysterious painted box pushed into a dark corner, before Nanny sent her outside to play. As she slipped down the staircase she passed the door to Grandmama's room, but Grandmama had gone to live with her sister in Greatchurch and her place was filled with shadows. 

The garden. Linnie had made it past the threshold, one toe drifting across the grass. Before she would have dashed to see the strange and wonderful animals growing like trees, but her father’s loss sat like a hard lump in her chest, weighing her down and making running feel wrong. Instead, with a glance at her uncle who gave her a reassuring nod, she stepped out sedately and, hands clasped behind her back in an unconscious parody of her father, walked slowly along the path. But Linnet Oldknow was six years old, and not even her loneliness and missing her Papa could completely drown out the enchantment of the gardens on a warm summer day. Soon her feet gave a little skip, and then another, and soon she was moving about almost as lightly as before. 

The topiary deer was an old friend and she did as she had never dared before, wrapped her arms around his neck and talked to him confidingly. He stood, stiff and whispery in the breeze, his leafy neck prickly beneath her bare arms. Was it the way her small weight hung on him, or could she feel the deer nodding in response? Would he turn to look after her as she walked onwards? Soon though she was distracted by the sound of whistling, and following the sound, she crept around a corner to find a man with a pink face turning over soil in a flower bed. As she grew closer she wrinkled up her nose and put her hand over it to block out the smell. The gardener turned round.

“Why it’s little Miss Linnet! You haven’t forgotten Boggis, have you?” She shook her head uncertainly, and her eyes drifted back to his fork and the large steaming pile he was working into the soil. He caught her bewilderment and smiled. “The stable’s finest, and wonderful for the roses. You feeds them right and they grows their best for you. If you gave them those puddings you like they’d pull just the same faces as you do at their dinner.”

Linnet laughed, a light and happy sound, but she broke off abruptly.

“Mr Boggis, did you know my Papa?” 

“Why yes miss, one of the finest horsemen in the stables. He could comfort a nervous beast with a word, and he jumped beautifully. We were all very sorry miss.” Linnie’s lip wobbled and Boggis continued hurriedly. “Have you been playing in the garden, Miss Linnie?”

She nodded. “I’ve been finding the animals. I only knew the deer and the peacock before. Do you think that they move when I’m not looking?”

“There’s things moving in the garden that don’t make sense in daylight, so keep those eyes and ears open and you never know what you might see.” 

Linnie nodded. This made perfect sense. “I think the squirrel will creep around and try to find nuts. Perhaps I’ll find some acorns for him. What do you think the deer eats?”

Boggis chuckled. “I can see you belong here Miss. All the children love to play with those animals. Now, best let me get on with my roses before my gaffer catches me.”

Linnie shook back her hair and started to hurry off in search of fodder for her hedge menagerie, but then paused and came back.

“Other children, Boggis? When do they play here? Do you think they’ll let me play with them?”

Boggis eyed her appraisingly. “I should think they might, Miss. You keep listening and watching and you don’t know what you might find. There are lots that play in the garden if you know how to look.” 

An hour later Uncle Roger found her, tired and grubby, peering through the hedges in the wilder part of the grounds. She had been looking for Boggis's 'other children', but all she had caught was a distant laugh, and now her legs were heavy and her thoughts muddled. Scooping her up, her uncle carried her back towards the house, and she put her head on his shoulder. He handed her across to Nanny, who clucked in horror at the bark smudged pinafore and the bits of twig in her hair. Soon, washed, brushed and restored to the order that Ivy thought proper, she was lead downstairs to where her aunt sat sewing in the drawing room. 

This room was a place of wonders to a curious little girl, and she longed to open cupboards and poke into the soft dark places behind hangings. Shelves were filled with a myriad of things just out of reach, glinting temptingly in the evening sunlight. Tapestry curtains could be examined for hours and still have new creatures and plants to discover, and the big inglenook fireplace promised that the room would be a warm haven even on the coldest of days. Today though, Linnie followed her aunt’s instructions and climbed quietly onto one of the armchairs, bright eyes looking about her as her hands stayed firmly in her lap and she answered her aunt’s questions. Something above the fireplace caught her attention, and she was about to ask one of her own when her uncle entered, holding a letter in his hand. 

“From Aubrey!” he smiled, passing it to his wife, who dropped her needlework to read the closely written pages from their second son. He moved to the walnut bureau and tucked the rest of his envelopes inside, before turning his attention to his small niece.

“Well, Linnie my dear, we are delighted to have you here with us. The house is quiet now our boys have grown, and we miss having someone to tell stories to. You have Nanny, I know, but come to us if there is anything that you need.” 

Linnie looked up at him. “Uncle, who are they?” Her uncle followed her gesture towards the oil painting hanging above the fire, showing a group of adults and children. His niece had been drawn to the gentle smile of the woman, and to a little girl not much older than she, whose eyes danced with mischief.

“They’re all family. That’s Toseland, Alexander, and the little one is Linnet just like you, with their mother and grandmother. Can you see where they are?” He watched closely as Linnie’s eyes grew huge.

“Uncle, it’s the garden! I can see the house! Do they play here?” her uncle looked out of the window and was just opening his mouth to reply when Anne cast her sewing from her lap and sprung up to spin him in a circle.

“Aubrey is coming back next month, just when the others will be home. Just imagine, all of our boys together!” The letter was still clutched in her hand, and all her attention was on her husband. Linnie felt herself vanishing as the adults chattered excitedly about drives, dinner parties and expeditions planned for the return of their children. Her lip began to wobble, but as she looked up she caught the eye of the little girl in the painting. It was a look full of promise, and she managed to swallow her loneliness and smile back.

The next morning she was turned out into the garden bright and early, the squire and his wife believing that an outdoor life was the best thing for a child on a warm day. Nanny sat in a basketwork chair with her mending, while Linnie roamed the edge of the lawn and pretended not to hear the call to stay in sight. A gay laugh caught her ear, and she hurried towards it with determination, only to hear another from the other side of a hedge. Not deterred, Linnie turned back to the new sound. She must catch them; they sounded so close. A snatch of voices, too blurred to distinguish the words but friendly in tone, led her back to where the path swung round towards the roses, but then pulled her in the other direction. Each time she felt she must reach them, they were gone. Hot, frustrated, and ready to cry, she turned a corner and almost ran into a man made of stone. 

The figure made her pause for a moment, and then edge closer to examine him. Fish peered through swirling waters at his feet, and up – up – up on his shoulder sat a child, one arm lifted up. Linnie realised with a start that she knew who they were: St Christopher and the Christ Child, just like Papa’s book. A small patch of grass near his feet made a sunny spot to sit, and she curled there, quest forgotten, and looked up at him. His gentle smile felt friendly and she began to tell him things, about how she had lived here as a baby after her mother died, but had only visited after that, how her Papa had gone away and she missed him very much, and how she had been chasing the children but couldn’t find them. The hard lump in her chest was back and she buried her head in her pinafore as her shoulders shook. Then she felt something land on her feet, and pulled herself together enough to lean forward and look. A twig was on the gravel in front of her, cut into a perfect ‘L’.

Linnie didn’t know about tool marks, but she could see that this wasn’t one of the ordinary broken twigs she and her father used to hunt for and see if they could turn into animals. It was very definitely an L: L for Linnie. Another laugh echoed across the grass, but this was gentle rather than teasing, and her eyes dried as she looked at her new treasure. Holding it in her lap, she looked up at St Christopher, who seemed to be giving her a knowing smile. Just like the green deer, he seemed to know she belonged.

The pattern of her days seemed set. After breakfast in the nursery, Linnie would go to wish her aunt good morning, before being turned out into the garden to play. There she would make a circuit to visit all of her green animals, stroking them and topping up the little piles of dried acorns, beech nuts and fresh green leaves, she left for their fodder. Laughter haunted her, and sometimes she would try to follow it around and about, discovering new paths and nooks each day. Once she was sure she saw a figure vanishing beneath the branches of a tree, only to find the space empty of anything but another twiggy L. She sometimes even heard horses neighing, yet the stables remained determinedly empty each time she ran to look. 

Even on a wet day she was taunted by glimpses in mirrors; a flash of curls, a gleam of a buckle or a shadow which would vanish when she tried to look again. After Nanny called her in to tidy herself for lunch which she ate with her aunt and uncle, she would join one or other of them for the afternoon. Sometimes her aunt would take her visiting, or to the church where she arranged the flowers, a cool and airy space smelling of beeswax, stone and something papery and mysterious that she couldn’t place. Occasionally her uncle would scoop her up into the carriage and take her with him to deliver documents, once they drove into Greatchurch to see Grandmama and visit the mighty cathedral standing high above the fens. 

After they returned home, Linnie would be let loose in the garden to run off her fidgets, to curl up near St Christopher, or to wander among the roses, learning to tell them apart by scent as well as colour. Sometimes Boggis was there with a smile, a wink, and occasionally a tale about her father and his brothers. Then back inside for supper in the nursery and a quiet hour with books or table games in the drawing room before bed. If Nanny was in a good mood, she would tell stories, and Linnie longed for the days when the darning would be cast aside, and the warm lap patted twice in encouragement. 

Linnie was learning to love her new life, and memories of her Papa were starting to blur with the tales of others and turn him into a distant storybook character. Her aunt would sometimes pull her close and show her the delicate miniature of him which would one day be her own, but her Alexander Oldknow's face looked young and serious, so different from her laughing, singing Papa. She took comfort in the new things, in her strange playmates and the twiggy letters they left for her.

Then one day she ran upstairs to change out of her visiting dress, to discover Ivy Softly had found ‘those nasty old bits of wood’ and removed them. Linnie was horrified.

“Nanny! They were mine, and they were presents. Please can I have them back?” but it was too late. Ivy Softly had flung them on the kitchen fire with very little thought, and now gazed at her small charge in frank puzzlement. 

“Now poppet, you don't want dirty things like that inside. A pretty flower I could understand, but those were all grey and dusty. In the fire is the proper place for old wood. Now why don't you...” But Linnie had fled downstairs and out into the garden where she flung herself sobbing at the feet of the green deer.

She had no idea how long she had lain there, when she became aware of a soft hand patting her hair, and a gentle voice entreating her to say what was the matter. Lifting her head, she saw a little girl of her own age, her face anxious as she pushed a pocket handkerchief into one of the hot little hands in front of her. Linnie’s smile broke through her tears as she recognised the girl in the painting. So, she had found her at last. 

From then on, Linnie would catch glimpses of Linnet in the dappled shadowlight under the tree, in mirrors in the hallways, and once on the stairs when a hand pulled her into a dark corner where the two little girls crouched giggling together as Linnet’s brothers called to her below. Even when she wasn’t visible, Linnet showed herself. Baskets of woven twigs stuffed with moss appeared in their hidey hole near the green deer, and little piles of acorns, fresher than the ones Linnie had found, sat near the squirrel. More and more she became real for her friend, and the two would play together until a call from the house would make Linnie look up, only to find Linnet had vanished once more. 

One morning Linnie made for the trees, to jump back with a squeal of disgust as cold drops showered onto her neck and arms. Abandoning this plan, she kept to the paths, until she spied Boggis on the riverbank, hauling a boat up onto the grassy bank. Running across, she watched as he turned the boat upside down and began to examine the underside with care. After a few moments he spoke without looking round “Your boat’s got itself into a spot of trouble, Miss Linnet” 

“My boat?” At that he did look round, momentarily confused. 

“Why hello there Miss Linnie. I thought you were the other.” He went back to his study, before a cry of “There she is!” and a swift dig with his penknife revealed the leaky spot. He rummaged in his pockets, brought out a small pot of something dark and treacly, and proceeded to stuff it into the crack, watched all the time by a fascinated small girl. Then he sat back on his heels and admired the work, before turning to Linnie.

“Do you know your letters, Missy?” Linnie nodded indignantly, and he pointed to some thing painted on the prow. The boat was still the wrong way up, but by turning herself over so her head almost rested on the grass next to it, she managed to work out ‘The Linnet’.

Her mouth fell open and she tumbled herself upright, hair falling in her eyes. “But Mr Boggis, it’s got my name!” Boggis laughed at her antics, and then looked concerned. 

“Best get off that damp grass, Miss Linnie, or Mrs Softly will be cross with you, and worse than that, cross with Boggis. There now, look at your apron, all green and grubby.” 

Slightly taken back at her white lawn pinafore being called an apron, Linnie looked down in consternation. Muddy streaks adorned the front, decorated with bits of grass and the odd clover leaf. The cool breeze caught at the damp patches and made her shiver, but Linnie was used to being outdoors, and a good run warmed her up. When Nanny did call her, she was cheerfully rosy, her clothes dry and the grass dusted off. She had some help with the latter, other hands joining her own to get at the tricky back bits. Nanny tidied her up, listened to her morning’s adventures, then pointed out the heavy clouds which would interrupt the afternoon’s plans. Uncle had promised to take her with him to the farm, but she knew that if the rain fell or even threatened, he would don his greatcoat and hat and trudge off alone. After the spate of accidents over the past five years which had claimed his father, two brothers and a groom, he almost never rode.

Ivy Softly had a lap made for comforting disappointed children. She cuddled the little girl close, and started a story.

“Did you know that my Auntie was nanny to Miss Susan here, years ago? She had her nursery just where you do, but she couldn’t run in the gardens and play because she couldn’t see and wanted watching. Nanny would take her for walks around the path, and then back inside again. They always stayed away from the river, because Nanny was afraid that little Miss Susan would slip and fall in, and she was very much afraid of the river. 

“There was a reason she was afraid. Once, when Susan was a baby, my auntie was in the garden hanging out some washing. Most things were sent to the kitchens to be washed, but the delicate embroidered muslin cap and lacy frock were very fine, and Nanny didn’t trust the maid who washed the baby things. The little bonnet had been a present from a grand lady of the family’s acquaintance, and Susan’s mother was most concerned it should be well cared for. Susan looked very sweet with her dark hair poking out beneath the ribbons, and Nanny cared for it with pride. There must have been a gust of wind because Nanny felt the cap twitch out of her hand and watched in horror as it drifted off towards the river. Each time she thought she was close enough to reach, it moved again, until finally it caught on a branch. Sighing with relief, she reached out her hand. Nanny was out of breath and her hair was in her eyes from hurrying, so she didn’t see the riverbank in front of her. The next thing she knew was the thunder of the river as it enveloped her and tugged her away from the shore.

“Her wet skirts twisted this way and that, now binding her legs together, now freeing them to kick and splash. Her frantic cries were muffled by her shawl, which clung to her face in a puff of wet wool, and her eyes were blinded by her own cap. Then, suddenly, she became aware of a child’s voice calling out. Then, an answering shout from the bank, a splash, and a hand grabbed at her to haul her against the warm body of a horse. Too heavy in her wet clothes to be lifted up further, she was towed to the bank, where Boggis and the boy with the horse heaved her up onto the bank. As she shivered and wiped the water from her face, she felt a warm huff of breath from the horse’s nose, and then it was gone. She heard a child cooing that she was safe now, and then Maggie and Cook came flying across with rough towels and helping hands. 

“Boggis always claimed that he had no idea who had brought him close to the river that day, and only smiled quietly when Nanny spoke of the children who fetched help. She thought at first the boy must have been Susan’s brother Sefton, but he was over at the vicarage learning his lessons, and none of the horses in the stables were even damp. However, a few weeks later, my auntie found him painting a brand new boat “A river rescuer, just like its namesake”. When he stood back, she could see the name: The Linnet.”

Linnie looked up sleepily. “What about the little cap. Was it lost forever?” Ivy Softly smiled fondly at her. 

“When Maggie was sent out to fetch the washing late that afternoon, she found it pinned to the line as if nothing had happened. Auntie always claimed that the little girl who had fetched Boggis must have found it and brought it to safety, for the only damage was a small snag in the lace, which was carefully mended. When you were brought here as a baby, you wore that very bonnet for church, and a proper job it was to keep you from chewing those ribbons.”

Later, in bed in the nursery, Linnie thought very hard about Linnet, and her brothers. Screwing her eyes shut, she pretended that there were three other beds in the room, and that the leaves against the window pane were the snuffling of sleepy people. Perhaps Alexander would read them a story before they slept. Their presence was almost tangible, and wait – was that a yawn? Linnie sat up in bed. “Linnet?”

“Mmmhmm?” 

“Was it you who pulled Susan’s nanny out of the river?” She heard the flump of a body turning in a bed near hers, and a little laugh.

“No, ignority, I saw her fall and called for Toby. Alexander ran for him, and I fetched Boggis. Toby pulled her out. If I had been riding Feste, I’d have tumbled into the water when I tried to catch her!” For some reason this struck them both as wildly funny and they giggled into their bed clothes until Toby’s voice begged them to go to sleep. Linnie whispered ‘Goodnight’ into the darkness, and smiled at the sleepy chorus in reply.

The rain continued for a few days, and Linnie lolled against the window pane, sulking. Her friends rarely lingered indoors, and she was lonely and out of sorts. Nanny had been trying to teach her some sewing, but the fabric crumpled beneath frustrated fingers, and stitches pulled too tight. Then Nanny had been called away, and the little girl threw herself disconsolately onto the window seat. When Linnie looked up from her sulks, a girl was sitting in the rocking chair, working at something in her lap. Her hands moved busily, but her head leaned back against the wooden back, her eyes distant. Linnet sat up and slid off the seat, and the girl jumped.

“Who is it? I didn’t hear you come in.” Linnie shrunk back against the bed and the girl laid aside her lapful. “It isn’t Jacob, and Mama and Sefton are away. I can hear Nanny in the garden, and you were too quiet for the maids, so you must be one of the others…?”

“I’m Linnie Oldknow. What are you doing?” 

The girl stroked the fabric in her lap. “Patchwork. I use all the scraps from Mama’s dresses, and sometimes there are pieces of Papa’s shirts. Come and feel.” Linnie shut her eyes and let the hands guide hers over the soft material, stroking delicate dotted muslins, heavy cotton and fine linen. 

“Yours stitching is tiny, I can barely see. Not like mine. I’ve been trying all morning, but Nanny says I must start again.” The girl held out her hand and Linnie dropped the creased rag into it. She watched as the fingers probed the hem and pulled experimentally on the thread dangling from one edge.

“You are pulling the thread too tight and it makes the cotton wrinkle. Let me…” the uneven hem was ripped open and pinned back into place. “Small stitches, as small as you can make them. Do not try to hurry. Sometimes I sing in my head to keep them smooth. Here.” She handed it back, and Linnie looked down at it with renewed interest. 

“Thank you, I’ll try…” but the girl had gone, vanished like a candle snuffing out. Linnie patted the seat of the rocking chair to set it in motion. The cushion beneath her hand was still warm.

One day she was sitting with Linnet, listening to the birdlike trills she now knew to be Alexander's flute. He let her try sometimes, showing her how to curl her lip and blow, while Linnet turned head over heels with laughter at her efforts. This made Linnie even more determined to succeed, for Linnet couldn't stop laughing for long enough to produce the squeakiest sound. Linnie had a pleasant voice and had often sung with her Papa, but the cooing of the flute made her feel happy and sad and warm all at once. 

The voices in the garden startled her, cutting off the sound of Alexander’s flute as he and Linnet vanished. Linnie edged out from her hidey hole under the tree, and followed the strange new laughter eagerly. As she came to the edge of the trees, she saw three boys – men almost – throwing a ball between them and calling out to each other. One cast off his coat and started to clamber up the tall tree in the middle of the lawn, the others cheering him on below. Could this be Alexander and his brother all grown up? Were they some of the other children Linnet spoke about? But then her aunt appeared, laughing and kissing them all and admonishing them for arriving a day early and unannounced. They followed her inside, the tallest and shortest each taking an arm. The middle boy stopped, looked back, and then strolled across to collect his discarded coat. As he bent down, his eyes slid across to where she crouched in the bushes, and he greeted her with a wink.

“You must be Linnie?” a shy nod was all the response he got, and he held out his hand to her. “I’m your cousin Toseland. Come inside and meet the others.”

The gardens at Green Knowe were always filled with laughter in Linnie’s memory. First with that dainty chuckle, then with the light laughter of Toby and Alexander, and then with the solid hilarity of three brothers reunited and enjoying their company. Others flitted in and out, and eventually the laughter was of two people who had found love, walking hand in hand around the home that was to be theirs. There was the clucking of babies, the calls of grandchildren, and now another Toseland had made the grounds his own.

Looking out of the window, Mrs Oldknow watched Tolly and Ping run across the lawn, jumping cat-like over tree roots and darting out of sight. Their laughter was drowned by a loud splash, and she knew that they would not emerge until teatime, exhausted and glowing with a day of merriment and sunshine. Mrs Oldknow loved Ping, but Tolly was her own great grandson and held some of the magic of the house about him. Like so many others, no matter how much he grew a part of him would always be young and joyful, playing at Green Knowe, flitting against the memories of others. On that thought a small hand crept into hers, and two Linnets, old and young, stepped out into the garden together.


End file.
